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Hitching Time
General

Remodeling our Bunkroom in Our Kodiak

By now, we have gone camping a couple of times. Spreading several nights in our camper has given us an idea of what we like and don’t like. After spending months trying to find the right floorplan, you would think that it would be exactly what we wanted.  If you think about it though, even though you find the best option available, something can always be changed to fit your life.

Why Are We Remodeling

So why are we remodeling? While most of our RV is good, the one thing that we  didn’t like is that the bunk room doesn’t have a lot of room in it. There is basically just enough room for one person to walk between the beds. The other concern that we had was our kids falling off the top bunks. We have already had one of our kids fall off a top bunk in our house, thankfully he landed on the bed below. 

This is what it looked like when we bought the RV. On the left was an offset bunk bed and on the right was a top bunk that folded up and a Jackknife couch underneath. My wife can think very fast on her feet and often makes things work the best with the littlest amount of time required. So she suggests that we remove the bottom bunk on the left, take out the couch, and build a new double bunk on the right. Then build a cubby shelf on the left for clothes, shoes, and toys.

This would give more floor room for our kids to play on rainy days and more storage for their clothes. The only storage in the bunk room before was two drawers under the bottom bunk and one very deep cabinet.

That is not enough room for three kids, their clothes, toys, and shoes!

When we rebuild the beds, they would need ladders so we decided to incorporate a bed rail on the side as well. This solved the concern of our kids falling off the top bunk. Now it was time to sketch out our plans so I could do the figuring out how to build it and the materials that we would need.

While my wife is the idea/designer person, I am the one that figures out how to do it. Then we both work together to make it happen! We make a great team if you ask me.

Demo

With our new design figured out and material bought, it was time to get rid of the old and make room for the new. That old was only a couple of months old but that’s not the point. We took out the lower bunk, couch, and upper bunk on the right. Here is the clean slate that we had to work with

When we took out the lower bunk on the left, we noticed that we had the power wire and the rear water connection that we had to deal with. So we had to change our plans slightly to make a cover for the wires but also be functional in the space. My wife jumped into action and said, let’s make a step to cover the wires and function as a seat to get dressed or put on shoes too.

It took all of about thirty minutes for my wife to completely demo the bunk room while I was making lunch for the kids. She is a beast when she sets her mind to something! One thing is for sure though, it really opened up the room!

Building New Bunk Beds

Now that the bunk room was empty, it was time to start rebuilding. The plan was that my wife would start working on the bottom bunk on the right, while I started working on the cubby shelf. She started measuring and I was off to my workshop. It wasn’t long before I was called back into the camper to get my opinion on something and we just started focusing on the bunk beds together.

That is normally the way that it works out when we do projects, together is better!

Trying to figure out where the support boards would go for the top bunk was probably the most challenging of the entire build. We wanted it high enough for our kid on the lower bunk to have enough room to sit up on her bed. In the same thought, we wanted our son on the top bunk to have enough room too. We also needed to consider how big the top bed structure would be. I figured that I could cut a 2×4 lengthwise at an inch and a half and it would be strong enough; after all that is what the top bunk was made of from the factory. 

Off to my workshop for me it was, while my wife finished putting the bottom bunk together. I ripped a few 2×4’s lengthwise at one and a half inches and drilled some pocket holes in them to connect them together. I cut the back board to length and went inside to attach it to the wall pretty much where the original board was screwed to the wall. The the side boards went on the ends. I decided to over-craft it some by using three center cross pieces instead of just two that would’ve worked. After the center pieces were in place, the front board was screwed into place. 

With the framework done, we put a ½” piece of plywood on top and screwed it into the framework. It made it pretty solid. We probably could’ve stopped there and been just fine. However, we still didn’t fix one of the problems that we had about the bunk beds; our kids falling off the top bunk and how to get up on the top bunk too. 

Now it’s time for the ladder

We had talked about putting a rail fence along the side with slats about every six inches or so. We liked the idea so I ran with it. First though, we needed a way to get up to the bed. For that, we needed to build a ladder. 

Again I went back to a 1 ½ x 1 ½ board.  This was the perfect size for strength and for slimness. I also took my router with a 1” roundover bit and rounded off the top of each rung to make it easier on our kids feet. I put it together with glue and a pocket hole screw. Then I rounded over the side rails as well to make them easier to hold onto. 

After it was all put together, I took it out and installed it onto the bunch. Not only did this give our kids a way to climb up to the top bunk, but it also gave a close to center support for the bed, making it VERY sturdy. 

Next up was the side railing

I hade planned on using my table saw to cut a groove into bottom and top boards. However, after the second cut, the motor on my table saw all but seized up. I was forced to use my router to cut the groove. While it worked, it wasn’t as neat as it would’ve been on the table saw. 

With cutting a 2×4 down to an inch and a half, it left a piece about a half inch thick that was perfect for the slates in the side railing. So I took those pieces and cut them down to about 11 inches long and put them in the grooves and glued them in place and tacked them with a brace nail to hold them while the glue dried. Next I took my router and rounded off the top board and sanded everything really well.

The next day I took that piece out and attached it to the side handle of the ladder and the other end to the wall. It didn’t match up perfectly to the ladder rail, but it was pretty close. 

THAT’S IT, BUNK BED IS DONE!

Building A Cubby Shelf

With the bunk beds done, it was time to move onto the cubby shelf. We decided to build a four foot by four foot 12 cubby shelf. This allowed for a four by four grid of approximately 11”x11’x12” deep each. We decided to go with 1×12 yellow pine boards rather than plywood. That way, later, when we stained them they would look better. 

I started out by cutting six boards to four feet. These boards would be for the outside borders and the three horizontal shelves. On the border boards, I routed out  grooves approximately ⅜” deep at 12” on center. This is where I goofed a little. 

On the ends of each board I routed half the thickness of the boards on each connecting piece then put them together to make a solid matched corner. I should have measured from the edge of the joint instead of the edge of the board beforehand.

 I discovered after everything that built that the two outer cubbies were about ⅜” smaller than the middle two were. However, this defect is minor and the totes that we bought for this shelf still fit. 

I got lucky!

Once all the grooves were cut, I started putting it together. I glued all the solid pieces together and then put a few brad nails in to hold them while the glue dried. Once the full length pieces were in place, I cut the upright pieces and slid them into the grooves that I cut. I made another oopsy in this process as well, because a couple of the grooves that I cut were a little too small for the board to seat well in them. However, it was too late to try and fix it because it was all glued together. 

I had to make due with what I had and did manage to get most of them to seat most of the way. I glued each of these pieces as well and the clamped all of them together and let it sit overnight to dry.

The next day, I moved it inside and passed it off to my wife who did an amazing job at staining it all. 

Building the Ladder and Bed Rail for the Last Bed

The ladder for the last bed was basically a redo of the first one, but I learned from my mistakes and made this one better. I made it all in one piece before I rounded the edges so it all flowed together very nicely. This one turned out better because when I made the channels for the rail slates, my table saw went out so I had to do it with a router. Let’s just say, it didn’t turn out the best. 

I also had to make a step for the bottom that would hide the power and water connection that came in under when the bottom bunk was. For the step, I used a piece of ¾” plywood. I cut it into a trapezoidal shape and rounded over the front of it to make it look nice. I then made some 1 ½” x 1 ½” risers to hold the step in place and attached it in place to the wall and cubby shelf. 

I took a piece of the ¼” plywood that we took out from the bottom bunk and cut it to fit on the sides of the step to hide power and water connections. I then took the ladder and side rail piece and put it on top of the self and over the cubby shelf and screwed it to the shelf and the step. 

Finished Remodel

After everything got stained, we were done!

I will say that I really like the way that it turned out. As far as space goes, our kids have so much more. They also have more storage for clothes and toys. The only real thing that was lost was the jack knife couch but honestly, I really don’t see them sitting on it anyway. I think this is the way it should’ve been from the factory, but hey, I’m kind of partial too.

There are two things that I did that I wish we wouldn’t have. 

The first one is that I wish I would’ve made the first ladder and railing the same as I did the second one. The second one ended up looking a lot better than the first because I did it as one piece. However, just like with anything in life, the second time you do something is always better than the first. 

The second thing is when we installed the bunk beds, I misjudged how thick the slide wall was and ended up using screws that were a little long and they ended up going through the side of the camper and the bottom of the slide. I changed all the screws out when my wife noticed it for shorter ones and used clear silicone to seal the holes up, but you can still see them. The ones that went out the bottom, however, I would’ve had to tear apart the entire bed to change them out so I just cut them off and sealed them.

All things considered though, we think that it turned out very well and our kids love the room. Honestly, I think this is the way that the manufacturer should’ve done it to begin with. On the flip side though, I understand why they put the jackknife couch in and made it the way that it was. With the couch, there is a place to side when the couch and the top bunk are folded up. There is also another place for someone to sleep when they are folded down. 

What do yall think about the changes that we made? Leave a comment below and let us know. Also, please follow us on our Facebook and Instagram pages for some behind the scenes looks and to get notifications on new posts.

Until it is Hitching Time again,

Happy Camping!

NOTE: This post was originally posted the first part of this year(2023) when we originally started our blog. I am posting old posts to get caught up with the present then I will start posting new ones.

RV Tips

Deciphering RV Model Numbers

Hopefully by the time you are reading this post you have made a decision on what type of RV you want, now let’s go through the different floorplan options. Let me preface this by saying this is no small choice. It took us several months of looking at floorplans to find what we liked. Even after we picked a few floorplans we wanted, it wasn’t until we actually saw the RV in person that we decided to get the Dutchman Kodiak Ultra-lite 332BHSL.

Thankfully most RV dealership websites have pictures of the floorplans and you can sort and filter by certain aspects of the RV. However, I think it is still a good thing to understand what you are looking at at a glance when you are scrolling through the listings so let’s go over what the model numbers mean.

The Number Portion

The first three characters of the model number can be one of two things and both are currently in use as of the writing of this post. One of the options is that the number represents the square foot of the RV. So let’s use the model that we bought, 332BHSL. If 332 was the square foot of the trailer and we do a little math:

Length x Width = Area in square feet

We know the width of an RV is typically 8 feet wide so we would have to adjust the formula to be:

Length = 332 / 8

The answer would be 41.5 feet in length. I can tell you that our camper is 33 feet long so 332 is not the square foot of the RV. 

Typically, according to the research I have done, is that in a fifth-wheel RV, the 332 would be the square footage. However, our RV is a bumper pull so it is different. According to what I have read, typically, in a bumper pull RV, the first two numbers of the model number are the length of the trailer. So for our trailer, the first two are 33 and our trailer is approximately 33 feet long, so that matches.

The third digit in the model number I really couldnt find anything as to what it was for certain. Some sources said it was the year that that floorplan had been manufactured. So in our case it would be the second year. Other sources stated that it was how many slides the RV has. Again it would be correct for us because our RV has two. Maybe it is just something that the manufacture does that isn’t standard across the industry, I don’t really know.

The Letter Portion

Now, on to the letter portion of the model number. The letter portion of the model number is fairly easy to figure out if you know what you are looking for. They are not standard across the industry, but they are typically pretty much the same for most.

Let go through some common ones:

Living Room

RL – Rear Living

FL – Front Living

  • The living room area is located at the front of the RV, closest to the tongue
  • I have seen some really nice fifth-wheel RVs that have a front living floorplan that are very nice.
  • Example: 2023 Forest River Rv Salem Hemisphere 378FL

RE or FE – Rear or Front Entertainment

  • This is basically the same as the Rear/Front Living above, but it may have an upgrade entertainment system. This like a bigger TV or a surround sound system. Things that are normal the typical would have in them.
  • Example: 2023 Cruiser MPG 2780RE

Kitchen

FK – Front Kitchen

RK – Rear Kitchen

  • The kitchen is located on the opposite end from the hitch at the rear of the trailer
  • This is generally found on bumper pull and fifth-wheel RVs
  • Example: 2023 Palomino Puma 30RKQS

OK – Outside Kitchen

  • This is a small kitchen area that is accessible from the outside of the camper
  • This could mean two things.
    • It may be a very small trailer and the only kitchen is located on the outside of the trailer. For example, a tear drop camper has out outside kitchen or
    • The RV will have a normal kitchen inside but also have a condensed version outside. Typically with a small dorm style fridge, sink, griddle or stove and some storage areas. 
  • These are nice to have for those times when you are cooking meat or something that is messy to cook and you don’t want to mess up the kitchen inside to cook it. It is also nice for when it is hot outside so you dont heat up the entire camper cooking.
  • Example: 2022 Ember Rv Overland Micro Series ROK

IK – Island Kitchen

Bedroom

BH – Bunk House

  • Somewhere in the floorplan there is an area that had at least two bunk bed style bed in it. These could be smaller than twins like our bunk beds are or it could be about the size of full beds.
  • The beds could be in their own room or it could be right off the living area with only a curtain for privacy
  • Example: 2023 Dutchmen Rv Kodiak Ultra-Lite 332BHSL

MB – Middle Bunk

BL – Bunk Living

  • Bunk room that has a top bunk bed and a jack knife couch as the bottom bunk. It will have things like a TV, desk, wardrob area in it as well.
  • This one is a guess on my part because it makes sense, at least in my mind
  • Example: 2023 Forest River Rv Salem Hemisphere 369BL

QB – Quad Bunk

TB – Twin Beds

  • Twin bed in the RV
  • This is typically found on the smaller RVs
  • Example: 

Q or QB – Queen Bed

DB – Double Beds

RQ or FQ – Rear or Front Queen

K or KB – King Bed

Bathroom Location

RB – Rear Bathroom

FB – Front Bathroom

Slides

WS or S – Single Slide

SS – Super Slide

DS – Dinette Slide

  • A slide includes the dinette
  • I have seen a lot of floorplans of smaller bumper pull RVs that have just a single slide that moves the dinette out to make more living area.

TS – Triple Slide

  • RV with three slides

Misc

SLX/XLT – Lightweight/Ultra-Lite

W/WE – Western States Edition

  • States like California and others have different RV laws than the rest of the country does. To comply with these laws, some RV manufactures have to make specific changes to their units for compliance reasons.
  • This type is geared more towards motorhomes than towable RVs due to things like emissions laws for example.

There is a lot of model codes out there. Some of them are easy to figure out, others don’t make any sense at all! I saw one trailer that was a tear drop trailer and its model number was 10SS. In other RV the SS means Super Slide but in this instance…

Common sense tells me that when you are determining a model number for an RV, you want to make it where it will highlight the best feature or the most noticeable feature on the unit. Makes sense, right? Maybe if I knew what they stood for, then maybe I would understand why a letter combination was picked.

I hope that this bit of information helped you decipher the RV model numbers you may have been looking at. If it did, please consider following us on our blog, facebook and Instagram.

Until it is Hitching Time again…

Happy Camping

NOTE: This post is was published earlier this year when we first started out blog. I am posting all these blog posts from before prior to posting new content.

General

What Type of RV to Get?

When you are looking to get a new camper, the first question you need to answer is “What type of RV is the right choice?” Do you want a bumper pull, fifth wheel, Toy Hauler, or motorhome? Should you get a new one or a used one? How many beds do you need? What kind of amenities do you want? There are so many questions that you need to answer before you even start looking for the right floor plan.

DISCLAIMER: The below descriptions are based on what we have seen personally. There may be some floorplans or RVs that we have not seen and therefore we can not speak about it from personal experience. If you have other experiences or opinions, please leave a comment below and let us know.

What Style of RV

Motorhome

A motorhome is going to be the most expensive option because it is basically all-inclusive. With motorhomes, you drive it where you want to camp and everything is self-contained. The main drawback of a motorhome is that you will have to pull a car behind it to have transportation while you are camping. 

Out of all the different types of RVs, the motorhome is the most expensive. They also typically have the highest quality finishes and amenities. The price of a motorhome starts at about $75,000 and can go up over one million dollars or more!

You are limited on the floorplan options that you can have. You are always going to have the living area up front and the sleeping area in the back. The only exception to this is that some motorhomes will have a queen bed that can be lowered above the driver’s seat. There are also some models that have a couple of bunk beds. 

The next question for a motorhome is what class do you want? There are Class C, Class C+, Class B, Class A, and Diesel Pushers. Class C is your smallest option and only requires a class C license to drive it. The class A and Diesel Pushers require a class A license. The standard class A motorhome has gas engines and the Diesel pushers have diesel engines. So then the question becomes how much you want to spend on fuel when you fill it up. 

Class A Motorhomes have a large amount of storage in the form of outside storage bays. There are large bay doors that line both sides of the motorhome. Inside storage really depends on the floor plan.

Fifth Wheel RV

Fifth Wheel RVs are typically larger than bumper pull campers and therefore are heavier. With them being heavier they require a larger pull vehicle. Most can be pulled with a three-quarter-ton truck but are more stable with a one-ton dually truck. This is, of course, my opinion. There are a ton of people that pull fifth-wheel RVs with a single-tire rear end. However, there are a few fifth-wheel RVs that can be pulled with some half-ton trucks. 

For new fifth-wheel RVs, the prices range from about $40k up to several hundred thousand. When we are able to live in an RV full-time, we are leaning towards something like the Forest River Rv Sandpiper Luxury 388BHRD. This model runs about $85k from our local RV dealership and it fits all the needs that we want.

You also have more options with floorplan options with a fifth wheel versus other types of RVs. There are fifth wheels that have living rooms in the back, middle, or front. There are some that have two bedrooms and two full bathrooms. Some have bunk rooms; some have multiple bunk rooms.

Fifth wheels will typically have the most room out of all the choices from what we have seen. They have larger living areas and kitchens making them the best choice if you are planning on living in them full-time and having a bigger family. 

You also have to get a special fifth-wheel hitch installed in the bed of your truck. Because the fifth wheel attaches to the bed of your truck it allows for a heavier load because the tongue weight will be centered over the rear wheels. This makes towing a fifth wheel easier to maneuver in tight spaces. The main drawback to this is that you can’t store anything in the bed of your truck that is taller than the plate of the fifth-wheel hitch. 

The other thing that has to be considered when buying a fifth wheel is how big the bed of your truck is. If it is an eight-foot bed then you don’t have anything really to worry about. If it is a six-and-a-half-foot or less bed then you will have to buy a sliding fifth-wheel hitch, which costs more. This type of hitch allows the connection point to slide back and forth about a foot or so when you turn corners.

Bumper Pull

 A bumper pull trailer is probably the first one that people get a lot of the time, especially if it is just a couple or maybe one kid. They are smaller and lighter than fifth wheels and can normally be pulled easily with a half-ton pickup. 

They range from anywhere from a pop-up tent camper, to a larger bunkhouse camper like we ended up getting, from 2,000 pounds to 10,000 pounds. With heavier ones you may have to get airbags or bigger springs put on your truck but with the smaller ones you shouldn’t have to do anything. 

The price of a bumper pull RV is typically the cheapest option of any of the RV choices that you have. You can get a new bumper pull RV for as little as about $16k and they go up about $60k. The RV that we got was on the higher end of the bumper pull style because it is one of the bigger ones because we have five people in our family. We got the Dutchamn Kodiak Ultra-lite 332BHSL

A bumper pull will typically not have as much room as other types of RVs as they normally don’t have as many slides. If they do have a slide, it is normally in the living area, sometimes there will be a slide in a bedroom. 

Bumper pull trailers also don’t typically have as much storage as other RVs, especially outside storage. Our camper only has one outside storage area that stretches across the front of the camper. Inside there is a fairly decent amount of storage but nothing like a fifth wheel has. However, the point of living in an RV is to pair down on the things that you have to only what you need, right?

Toy Haulers

Toy haulers are a variation of a towable RV. They can be both fifth-wheel and bumper pull styles. A toy hauler is based around a rear garage with a lowerable ramp. The ones that we have seen have a modest living area and kitchen, a front master bedroom with a bathroom, and then a large garage area in the back. Some of them will have a single or double bed system in the garage area that has the ability to be raised and lowered. 

This allows for more sleeping areas when they are lowered and a place to store a four-wheeler, side-by-side, or golf cart when they are raised up. Some toy haulers will have a full-width bed on top and the lower one be a foldable bed that can be converted into a bench for a table. Some floor plans also have a full or half bathroom in the garage area as well.

The other really neat thing about toy haulers is often the back ramp can double as an outdoor patio area. Some of them have a foldable railing that can be folded up so no one falls off the side of it and gets hurt. We saw one toy hauler that had two porches, one off the back of the garage area and one that lowered off the front and could be accessed by a door in the living room.

New or Used?

Now that we have covered the many different types of RVs, let’s talk about whether it is better to go with a new RV or a used one. Obviously, this is a personal question that only you can answer for yourself. Let’s look at some of the reasoning for both sides. 

New RVs

Let’s look at some of the reasons to buy a new one first. When my wife and I were asking ourselves this question, one of the most important reasons is that a new one comes with a warranty. There are going to be enough expenses with buying an RV that we don’t have to worry about making any repairs or fixing any issues right off the bat and being out of that money. 

New RVs will also have the latest and greatest technology. If you are a technology-loving person then having neat “toys” with your new RV will be a big pull for you. On our new camper, we have a Bluetooth connection that will control a bunch of the features of our camper. We can lower the stabilizer jacks, put in or out the slides, control the inside and outside lights, control the water pump, and check the battery and tank levels all from your phone!

Of course, the technology, warranty, and all the newness of the RVs come at a price too. You will pay more for new RVs than you will for older ones. Much like vehicles, an RV starts to depreciate almost as soon as you drive off the lot with it. It doesn’t depreciate as much as a car or truck does but it will drop about 10-15% in the first year and then about 8% for the next four years. After that, it starts to slow down and will not lose as much value every year. How much an RV depreciates also depends on how well your RV is taken care of and any damage that may be done to it.

Used RVs

If you decide to go with a used RV there are some advantages though. Used RVs have been lived in already so any bugs that there might have been had been worked out already. Like if a plug doesn’t work, or the A/C doesn’t work, the person that bought it new, more than likely, has already taken it in and gotten it fixed. There is probably always going to be some kind of issue with any new RV that you buy

Used RVs are typically a lot cheaper than a new one because the first owner is the one that “ate” the depreciation and depending on how old the RV is will determine how much of a lower price you will get. My biggest fear with buying a used one is that there may be a water leak in the roof or something else that might be wrong with it. Of course, this is true with any used item you get, you have to do your own due diligence before you purchase it and accept the fact that there may be some things that you will have to fix once you buy it.

Which is the Best?

So which is the best option to buy? That depends on what you want and how big your family is. Each type of RV has its pros and cons. It also depends on what type of vehicle you have now. If you have a half-to-truck and you don’t want to trade it in also, a bumper pull is your best option. If you have a three-quarters-ton or a one-ton truck, then anything but the motorhome will work for you. If you have a small car then maybe a motorhome is what would work best for you.

If you have a big family, then a small bumper pull will probably be a little tight to live in even if it is nothing more than just sleeping in. If it is just for two people then a small bumper pull would work. They even have little teardrop campers that can be pulled with an SUV.

In the next post, we will be talking about floor plans and things to look for when trying to decide on what RV you will buy, so please follow our blog or follow us on our Facebook or Instagram accounts. On our social media pages, there will be some extra things that you might not see on our blog. 

Until next time,

Happy Camping

NOTE: This post is from our old blog when we started before. I will be posting all our old blog post to get caught up to now.